Category Archives: Love Food Friday

For anyone serious about reducing food waste, it helps to know what is often wasted. Designate one week where you keep a journal or record all the food that gets wasted in your household. This will help you make informed and wiser buying decisions. If you buy less you waste less.

This could be as simple as freezing half a loaf of bread because you don’t eat an entire loaf before it goes bad, or realizing that your family doesn’t like something and avoiding purchasing it in the future. Buy a smaller gallon of milk if that regularly spoils before you can drink it all.

It’s easier to form a plan to reduce your food waste if you know what’s wasted. It’s well worth the time and will likely save you some money too!

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we wind up with an excess of food—canned goods, perishables, meal leftovers. The best way to minimize waste is to SHARE!

If you made too much for dinner and no one in your family wants to eat it anymore, bring it to work and share with co-workers. They often enjoy something new, especially if they don’t have to cook it themselves.

If you find yourself with an excess of perishable and canned goods there are always food banks, homeless shelters, and other organizations that would be more than happy to take your excess and use it for a good cause. A simple internet search will help you find resources in your area. It’s always a great feeling to know that you’ve avoiding wasting food and used it to benefit someone in need.

*Anne’s note: My crew of guys at the feed yard LOVE it when I bring leftover food and baked goods to work with me. It’s a great way to both reduce food waste and make someone’s day just a little bit brighter 🙂

Most of us spend a good amount of money on food each month, and own a refrigerator. However, most people aren’t making the most of their investments with either. One can get the longest shelf-life out of produce and other perishables if one stores things in their optimal place. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your investments and reduce food waste due to spoilage.

Store potatoes, onions and whole garlic in a cool and dry (and dark, if possible) place away from direct sunlight. This will maximize the shelf life of these vegetables.

Store produce and fruits in their appropriate drawers in the refrigerator. They are specifically designed to offer ideal environments for fruits and veggies.

Store milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy items away from the door. While that gallon of milk fits nicely on the door, it’s actually going to spoil more quickly because of the temperature fluctuation when the door is opened and closed. The door is ideal for condiments and dressings that are less perishable.

Store beef and other proteins in the coldest part of the refrigerator—usually the back.

Check the temperature of your refrigerator. The colder the better, so long as it’s not freezing things. I keep my walk in refrigerator at work at 33°F. This maximizes the shelf life of all my products—especially the expensive beef I often have on hand.

These are just a few tips to help you maximize shelf life on your products and minimize waste.

We often have this idea in our heads that all produce needs to look perfect—uniform, shiny, without a single blemish. The reality is that produce comes in all shapes and sizes, just like people and cattle. Just because a tomato isn’t perfectly round or a pear has a minor blemish doesn’t mean that it’s any less healthful or tasty.

In America we waste tons, literally tons, of produce a year because it doesn’t meet the consumer’s expectation of perfection. In commercial food service, chefs can actually choose to buy cases of produce labeled “packer” that aren’t perfectly shaped, but are completely healthy and delicious. We often can save some money doing this, and it helps to prevent food waste.

I choose to do this from time to time for things that the shape of the whole vegetable or fruit is unimportant. Anything that’s going to be chopped up small or added to soup where the shape of the whole doesn’t matter. This is an opportunity to affect change and reduce food waste on a larger scale than simply not wasting what you purchase.

While you’re getting into that habit of planning meals and menus and organizing your kitchen, be sure to plan one day a week that uses what you have on hand. No matter how well you plan there are always leftovers, and left over groceries that need to be used. I do this regularly in the Culinary Center at NCBA. I often have extra produce on hand and get creative with how I can use it instead of buying more. I look at my canned goods and dry storage and see what I have on hand already and plan something that utilizes those things with a minimum of additional purchases required. And, of course, if you have several kinds of leftovers in the fridge and haven’t frozen them it’s always great for the family to be able to “make what they want” for dinner, and if there’s still some left, freeze it.

I like soup, chili, stew, and casseroles. I’m also single and making any one of those meals means that there are a lot of leftovers because I haven’t mastered the art of cooking smaller amounts in my personal life after cooking for large groups of people in my professional life. But, I don’t waste it, I freezer leftovers in single-serving size containers so that I can pop them out of the freezer and reheat them for a quick dinner, or pack it for a homemade lunch.

I use inexpensive “disposable” type plastic storage containers that you can find at the grocery store so that it’s not a large expenditure to have a plethora of them on hand when things need to be stored. I also label and date leftovers on the front edge so that I can easily find what I’m looking for in the freezer and know how long it’s been in there. This lets me use up the things that have been there for a while.

This is a great tip if you’ve made a large amount of something and you don’t want to eat it all week. Portion it and freezer it. It also gives you choices for quick meal options or lunch on the go. Additionally, you can freezer an excess of produce before it spoils. Particularly good for fruit for smoothies. If it’s more than you can eat before it spoils, chop it and freeze it and you’ll have delicious fruit on hand for that morning smoothie. Also works great for veggies from the garden or farmers market – freeze them and pop them out and into that stir fry.

A kitchen stocked with the staple ingredients is a happy and less wasteful kitchen!

While it may seem counter intuitive to the two former tips (Plan and Organize!), stocking the staples is actually a key way that I ensure that I have what I need to make use of the more expensive and more perishable fresh items. I routinely stock dried and canned goods like pastas, rice, canned beans and tomatoes, and several jarred sauces as well as flour, sugar, etc.

With a basic inventory of these items, I can ensure that I make use of the produce or meat I bought but didn’t get around to cooking when my busy life got in the way. “Shelf stable” items like this never go bad, and allow me to whip something up in a pinch or for that unexpected company that drops by.

Organize your fridge and pantry. An organized kitchen is a happy kitchen, and also an efficient and less wasteful kitchen.

If you can easily see what’s in your refrigerator and pantry you’re much less likely to waste things.

I keep perishable things at the forefront of my fridge so that they don’t get shoved to the back and become a fuzzy science experiment-gone-wrong.

I regularly take mental inventory of what I have and make sure that I store newer groceries behind older ones so the older ones get used first.

In the restaurant business we call this FIFO – First in, First out, it ensures I use things in a timely manner and they don’t go to waste. I go so far as to physically do inventory and check things off the grocery list that I made before I go shopping so I know that I’m not buying in excess.

Welcome to Feedyard Foodie

A native of urban Palm Beach County, Florida; I was an Ivy League educated athlete fueled by beef for many years before I understood “where my beef came from.” Now, I am a mother of three and live with my husband in Nebraska where we run a cattle feedyard and farming operation. Feed Yard Foodie is a site where people can come to read about the real story of beef, written by someone who actually gets their hands dirty.

Behind the Scenes at my Yard, Will Feed, Inc.

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